How to Practice a New Piece on the Piano Effectively 

Your first time sight reading is how I would sound after playing the piece for six months.

Your sight reading is great!

Maybe the best online piano teacher of them all. Very clear and straightforward content and with examples one can see and hear. You know, like a real teacher does right beside you on the bench ! This mazurka was first piece by Chopin I studied.

I was waiting for 15:34 or so when the eight note became a quarter note. Awesome instruction from my favorite pianist. Thanks for all you do!

How to start practicing a new piece: 1. Open a book. 2. Put on your suit. 3. Put on your pair of glasses. 4. Sit down. 5. Look at the book. 6. Start playing away.

Thank you for this video. Sometimes I get discouraged that I'm not able to immediately get fingerings on what seem like they should be simple pieces - it's always helpful to see that even pros have to work at it and break things down into sections! :-)

Robert, superb walk-through. Especially at both hands, back and forth 1) no sighted errors, check accidence 2) memory 3) score check, add pedal, rinse, repeat. I metronome to an indicated tempo first. I try to hear the piece in a pro rendition to keep me on track. Really enjoyed the 4 foot high staccato crescendo. Always a pleasure.

incredible sight reading skills, I can't believe I missed your videos all this time. I had to work really hard to read proficiently at the piano, although I don't think my skills are bad at all; I am actually very proud of what I learned, at least now I can learn a piece at my grade, exponentially faster, and I don't memorize anything on it anymore. But your skills are exceptional, that's an entirely other level. A great pianist! And great lesson, everybody should be thankful for your time. Thank you.

Astonishing skills

May God give me the strength to keep my stupid self from practicing too fast and always starting from the beginning.

I'm so happy for having watched this. Seeing you having to practice every phrase over and over and seeing you stumble here and there with the details was really motivating. Thank you.

So glad I came across this video here in 2020. I'm reacquainting myself piano after many years away from it. I've been feeling that in spite of my practicing, I'm not getting any better. This video was just what I was looking for. I never learned how to practice properly as a child, and I didn't know how to do it now. I can't wait to use this technique of breaking pieces down into small parts. I feel that this will absolutely help me. Thank you.

Best instructions on practice technique and learning by heart. Thank you so much!

This was great. I could watch your process all day. Alas, I must drag myself to the practice room...

Thank you for your videos. I am coming back to the piano after decades and your lessons here have helped tremendously, especially reminding me of the bad habits that I don’t want to repeat from my younger days. Brilliant teaching, Sir 💕.

thanks for the transparency Robert

I love this teacher and he has a brilliant personality and sense of humour. Outstanding lessons.

I'm an long-time amateur player. First, I love watching how you work as it has made me a better player. I would be quite interested in series on a well-known advanced or "pro" piece. I'm currently struggling with the key change in Clair de Lune by Debussy, but my next challenge is Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C# Minor. After watching a few people play it, I know I'm going to need help and have considered getting a tutor for it.

A hugely useful lesson on practice technique. Thank you! Like you, I am long sighted. I use half frame reading glasses so that I don't have to keep taking them on and off -- I just position them on the end of my nose and look up or down depending on whether I need the magnification or not. 🙂

ill never get over how impressive it is to see someone sight read and play ...

I love how they keep electrifying the keys every now and then.

What an exceptional lesson! Many thanks, Robert!

It's late here in Quebec, but I can't wait for tomorrow morning to try out your technique. It makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you very much for posting this video.

No way... I’m blown away by that sight reading

Great video. Extremely beneficial!

I watch a lot of RU-vid piano videos. This is the first one (that I can remember) that felt like a real piano lesson, one worth paying for. Thank you for the generous post.

Thank you. This is extremely helpful! I just love these practical tutorials.

Perfect timing! My teacher just gave me two new pieces to work on, I was going to start in on one of them this evening. Also, loving the piano from Living Pianos I bought last month!

This has been an immensely valuable video for me, thank you so much!!

I especially like this video. The sight reading demo is amazing. This is the first time I see this method.

This is simply great and extremely helpful and motivating! Thank you so much!

Your sight reading is incredible. That alone gives such a headstart learning a piece because it's right from the outset 'nearly there' and you're getting a very near-to-correct preview to build from. 'Typical' sight reading is far weaker than that (extremely in my case), so the rest of us start off far behind and likely having heard 'what the piece sounds like' when it actually doesn't ;) I admit to envying those reading skills. Practical question arising from that: for those of us with a huge gap between our reading ability and all our other piano abilities, how would that reading weakness best be compensated for in this method of learning a new piece? Should we self-impose a rule to only attempt to learn new pieces that can be reasonably well sight-read by our weaker reading skills (which would feel pretty awful and restrictive for pianists who are quite advanced apart from their reading)? Or should we feel free to learn pieces that better match all our other abilities aside reading but adapt the method from the video in some way to carry us while we have the reading deficit, and if so, what would those adaptations be (for example I can imagine one being: play that initial sight-read at a much slower tempo more manageable for my weaker sight-reading skills). (Obviously part of broader approach outside of the method for practicing a new piece would be to do plenty to "improve your reading skills", which I'm doing a lot of, but in the meantime, I still need to learn new pieces - indeed that's fundemental to improving reading skills!)

I think this may be the best piano lesson I have had! Great work.

Truly like all your videos and now I have also found a good source for sheet music.

Years of experience an formal training show.

This is good I cannot just pick up a piece and play I have to take the piece apart measure by measure. One hand then the other hand. And maybe I will get the piece hands together it will be in time. What I need to do is look for parts of the piece and start where the music don't repeat the same passage over and over then master just those parts then start repeating parts by then the whole piece will have the same number of times played. If I use my past awful practice habits I will only learn the repeated parts and struggle through the other parts.

Wow. Perfectly relevant for me today.

This is so encouraging. I have been teaching myself piano and this is how i naturally just approached everything.... minus the sight-reading. Unfortunately, I haven't played in 25 years... it's slow to come back but I"m loving it. I absolutely love your videos. So captivating, informative and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing all of this.

Thank you so much for uploading this video! It was really helpful to me in completing Chopin’s Op.58 Sonata!

Great sight reading! I wish I could do it. But it's interesting how he was doing same rhytmical mistake in right hand until 15:24, even when playing this simple rhythm with hand separately. Guess it shows he's one of us humans, haha

Thank you. Very helpful.

Excellent suggestions and demo on how to practice.

Question for people who can sight read like this: are you seeing the left hand chords as memorized shapes and recognize "C minor" or are you seeing the separate notes of the chord?

Extremely useful, even for one who stumbles with intermediate material. Thank you!

It is very useful to learn the phrase adding the beginning "incipit "of the next phrase as well !

Thanks for doing this. Really interesting and refreshing

I love these kind of videos.

Wow! I wish I could sight read like you.

Wow.. good sight reading skills

Wow, I love your lessons, they're so enlightening.

Robert i wish you could always be here for us.

This is brilliant information. Thank you so much. You are a fantastic teacher

Thank you Robert for putting up this really useful and informative video.

Thanks for the great video. It seems you don't start by writing fingerings for the notes? When I start a new piece, I read note by note to find the best fingering and write down the fingering, one or a couple bars at a time, then replay those bars and all the previous bars, then continue to next bar, write fingering.... till the end.

Wow! You sound like you've been playing it for two weeks!

Very helpful! Thanks Robert.

I’m curious, with the third measure, would you play the third and then play the second and third as a pair? Then would you play it from the first or move on only going back one measure to join it to the next until the end of the piece?

Amazing sight reading. I find it tricky when naturals, flats, sharps and double sharps are involved midway. Anything not belonging to the key signature throws me.

I am in awe! The best comment I can think of is: "Have you seen a man skillful at his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before common men." (Proverbs 22:29)

Thank you so much your videos are so informative!

EXCELLENT VIDEO! Thanks VERY much.

Thank you for your time sir

Very good video. Thanks for uploading. Would it be better to memorize the chords and progression within each measure?

Wow 21 minutes!? RARE!

very helpful! thank you!

This is GOLD!

thank you so much robert. this really helps a lot!

Much appreciated...thanks!

Would take me so much practice to match your sight reading! Wow!

AWSEOME...as always !!!!

Divide and conquer for musical moment is a good stratify. Question: are these pro musicians use the same strategy for remembering all of million notes for big public shows?

Nice to see that even world class pianists do hands alone!

It would take me five life-times to be able to sight read this fluently!

Wow, he said mouthfuls in this video. I will try my best. He is so proficient at reading. I would practice the Ab scale to get it in my mind first. The fingering changes. The notes and timing. A Chinese girl concert pianist tried to read some viewer choices first hand. Not nearly as proficient as this man.

Do you actually learn the names of the notes or do you mostly rely on muscle memory ? Thanks

good Video !

Very nice...

I am working at my sight reading. I am at the level of “the cat sat on the mat”. How long did you take to sight read as you did in this video.

With a piece like this, with lots of dotted rhythms, triplets etc., would it not also be helpful to read it through once while tapping or counting the rhythm before actually playing any notes? Esp. If one isn’t very used to the Mazurka rythms?

Wise words. There is a school of thought which implies that you should never attempt to sight read a piece you intend to learn. This should prevent any initial sight reading errors ever creeping in.

Worst part is I can play individual pieces and when I try to play whole song it takes months and finally I will forget after some time when I start a new song So I would say I am learning and can play song for some time and when you go to another you forget the old one, so not sure what is learned when every time I have to practice again to play again

he looks like ray romano from the side

I often watch and enjoy your videos! I just wanted to ask, not criticize you...is there any reason you kept playing the measure 3 (starting 12:53) right hand as if Eb was dotted quarter note and upper Db was only of a length of a quaver? You played it as written the first time, but any subsequent time the rhythm was off...wouldn't that be something you'd have to "unlearn" later? Thank you!

How about dormant pieces the ones you haven't looked at in 30 plus years. I would like a demonstration on how not to pick up bad habits I had when first learning those pieces. It's hard to unlearn bad habits in piano playing.

I can barely read notes, I am familiar with notations, but I'm so slow, I probably won't be able to do the first step. I recently learned a piece called "wet hands" it took me over a week just to learn all the notes and play it at a slower tempo. Since then, I've been practicing it almost everyday and I'm getting better. I've played it against the music, I'm very close to the original. What should I do to become a better reader so I can at least take advantage of the first step?

Qu: are you playing the 3/4 timing with the "126" metronome speed in your head? I set my metronome to 126 and it was super fast. Thoughts?

This guys sight reading is better than me after 100 years of practice lol

How much slowly is it enough when slow practicing? I have a feeling that it would take forever to learn a new piece if I have to play it slowly hundreds of times before getting it up to speed. Is this the right way to go about it?

No separate hands?

Thank you for uploading this, and 1st comment.

I think at 13:37 he played the D an eight late lol

want to learn a new piece... and then playing it perfectly at the first try xD

4:56 tristan chord off by one note :o

So Mr. Estrin, is it mean if I learn Bach's No. 17 A Flat Fugue this way it will be okay? =D Now I'm currently work on it section by section of 'sight-reading' because sight-read at one go is a great toll for my mental for all these sustaining notes, weird finger crossing and changing etc.

When I attempt a new piece I can't play it that fast I'm literally hunted picking

The first thing I do is select a piece that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE. If you love it you'll want to spend time with it - making love to it.

Why do it from memory?

Question: is it unwise to work on 2 new pieces simultaneously? ( i am 72 and been playing for 6 years or so.) Thanks!

7:52 wtf is wrong with rhytm??

what is a double flat?